Comments on: Is the oil spill over?https://www.capitolhillblue.com/node/31778
The oldest political news site on the InternetThu, 17 Aug 2017 18:13:10 +0000hourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.8.1By: Brian J. Donovanhttps://www.capitolhillblue.com/node/31778/comment-page-1#comment-70779
Thu, 05 Aug 2010 11:54:55 +0000http://www.capitolhillblue.com/?p=31778#comment-70779The National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan, more commonly called the National Contingency Plan or NCP, is the federal government’s blueprint for responding to both oil spills and hazardous substance releases. The National Contingency Plan is the result of our country’s efforts to develop a national response capability and promote overall coordination among the hierarchy of responders and contingency plans.

Pursuant to NCP Section 300.310, “As appropriate, actions shall be taken to recover the oil or mitigate its effects. Of the numerous chemical or physical methods that may be used, the chosen methods shall be the most consistent with protecting public health and welfare and the environment. Sinking agents shall not be used.”

The question is whether BP’s dispersants are “sinking agents” when they are applied a mile underwater at the source of the well leak.

David Hollander, a University of South Florida oceanographer, headed a research team that discovered a six-mile (10-km) wide “oil cloud” while on a government-funded expedition aboard the Weatherbird II, a vessel operated by the university’s College of Marine Science.

The underwater contaminants are particularly “insidious” because they are invisible, Hollander said, adding that they were suspended in what looked like normal seawater. “It may be due to the application of the dispersants that a portion of the petroleum has extracted itself away from the crude and is now incorporated into the waters with solvents and detergents,” he added. He said dispersants, a cocktail of organic solvents and detergents, had never been used at the depth of BP’s well before, and no one really knows how they interact physically and chemically under pressure with oil, water and gases.

Hollander said the contaminants raised troubling questions about whether they would “cascade up the food web.” The threat is that they will poison plankton and fish larvae before making their way into animals higher up the food chain, Hollander said.